


Ísland

by Kazaha_87



Series: Nordic Stories [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Adventure, Chibi Iceland (Hetalia), Gen, Norway lands in Iceland for the first time, Norway's POV third person, Vikings, how they meet, light gore and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-29 18:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7694512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kazaha_87/pseuds/Kazaha_87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Norway, together with his crew, sets foot in Iceland for the first time, but their journey seems cursed from the very start and that island has definitely something strange in it...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A perilous journey

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Here I am with my first attempt to detox from my new really bad addiction to Denmark/Norway pairing.  
> I'm still not sure that I'll succeed, in the end, but I'm trying... even if I'm taking the very long way to do so, starting from Chibi Iceland and brotherhood...
> 
> I'm still not completely sure of what will come out of this new 'project', but I think that it'll be a story in at least two parts, this first one set in the first (or second, it depends by what you mean with start...) century of the Vikings' colonization (ninth century).  
> I actually still don't know when second part will be set, if I'll continue with the Vikings or if I'll make a big time-warp to the Kalmar Union, the Reign of Denmark-Norway or even the Kiel pact... or if I'll touch all these periods... we will see XD
> 
> In the end, I think that there'll be a bit of all pairings between these three... so DenNor, NorIce, DenIce and DenNorIce... I still don't know the level of the rating of the stories. I just know that this first one will be absolutely safe.
> 
> About explanations of stuff (Viking's names for things) in this first chapter, everything will be at the end of it.  
> Also: I love comments, reviews and kudos... so, please, let me know if you liked this story.
> 
> PS: English is not my language, so if you find any mistake just tell me and I'll fix them. ;) Meanwhile, kisses

They’d been sailing the northern seas for weeks, now, and they’d been unlucky… really unlucky to be just around midsummer: three storms since they’d set sail for this new route. As if the Gods were against them…

They’d already lost sixteen men since they’d left the safe fjords of Norway, their drakkar was in awfully bad conditions because of the storms, and their water was finishing.

And still no land on the horizon.

…maybe, last year when they conquered and sacked that island called with many names like Ériu or Scotia, those monks of that strange religion with a single god just lied to them… maybe there was no land at all where they claimed it to be…

They spared their lives for that piece of information… maybe they should have just killed them all with no mercy.

_Next year_ , he thought. _Definitely next year my sword will taste their blood._

For days that only thought supported him…

But he was the captain, and the sea was cruel and harsh: if he lost faith, they would be dead for sure, because by now they wouldn’t have been able to go back or even change route to another known destination before they finished all their water.

The only chance they had was to continue and pray that that scum of monks didn’t lie… or, actually, that they didn’t just lose the route in the three storms they overtook until then.

Then, at last, three days later, when the sun started to rise again, between ótta and miðr morgun, and the sky turned from violet and red to yellow and turquoise and then white and light blue, the man on watch yelled the only word they had wanted to hear for days now: “ _Land!_ ”

And every time that after a long trip they reached a new shore they’d never reached before, Norge’s heart throbbed hard in his chest with an emotion that nothing else had ever been able to replicate.

“It’s big, captain! Nothing like Hjaltland or the Færøyane!”, the sailor yelled, excited, and everybody on the ship started to celebrate, readying to dock, at long last, in an átt at most if everything went right.

-&-

Once landed, they started to explore the hinterland in search for water and fresh food when one of his crewmen at the back screamed in evident pain.

Everybody drew their axes and swords, ready to fight, but neither of them could ever expect what they actually saw: water eructed from the earth.

“ _BURNS! BURNS!!_ ”, the injured man started to cry. “The Gods of this land refused us! We should have never heed those priests of that strange god! They cursed us! We must leave and never come back!”

“Nonsense, Einar!”, Norge shushed him. “If the Gods were really against us, we would have never found these lands in the first place and been already dead in the sea by now!”

“But you saw it! Hot water from the ground! How else can you explain this?!”

Norge glared at his men who were starting to get frightened by the mere possibilities.

“This have to be a mystic land.”, he replied in a flat, annoyed tone. “We just have to pay respect to the Gods and everything will turn out just fine. You know that I can talk with mystic creatures and entities: I’ll calm them and make sure that we get accepted.”, their captain declared. “Now, if you’re too scared to continue, just find a safe place to rest near the river that we crossed more or less a fjerding vei south-west from here. I’ll continue alone and search for the spirits of this land to gain their protection for us.”, he stated, and the calm of their leader was actually enough to placate their hearts and give them their courage back.

“We’ll come with you! We’re not cowards!”, another one cried, his pride of Viking probably shattered, and many more followed him with loud incitements.

“Ok, then. But actually it might be wise to look for a place to set our camp to rest and to take care of Einar, so I’ll take just eight of you with me for this recognition so to be nine in case we’ll find any mystical creature and we’ll need to set a ritual. We’ll be back between náttmál and miðnætti.”, their chief declared and, after deciding who to bring with him, he left heading north-east.

-&-

That island, by the way, really was an inhospitable land and, in an entire day wandering around, they had just found a couple of very _very_ small villages – just a group of four or five houses at most for a total of thirty to forty people of all ages.

The men of the two settlements, when they noticed them approaching from distance, had tried to put up a defense, maybe frightened by the weapons they were bringing with them, but, at the first man injured, both times they just surrendered on the spot.

So they asked for food and water, and those people provided them with their requested goods without more complaining.

Then, after the second small sack, Norge decided to head back again.

By the way, all day long he couldn’t cast off the impression of being observed, but many times he had turned and watched around, even with his troll’s help, but every time he had found nothing.

… _were they really unwelcomed by the gods there?_

-&-

After a week of nothing more than a few little villages and vast deserted lands wherever they looked, they decided to go back to the drakkar and leave there, setting sail towards home more than just slightly disappointed by what they found there, really. So they collected everything they'd gained – not much in truth… – and enough food and water for the journey back and headed towards the shore where they dropped anchor a few days ahead.

However, what they really didn’t expect to find was their ship half sunk...

 

_That_ actually set panic among the crew again after the first day there.

 

_Who could have done that? Not certainly the people of the villages! They seemed afraid of them, so why should they have wanted for them to stay longer than necessary? Or were they planning to unite and attack them together?_

 

…Norge too, after that last letdown, started to think that maybe his men were right from the very start: that journey, after all, had started bad since day two when they had encountered the first storm on the open sea.

 

_Maybe those priests really had cursed them…_

 

He sighed, annoyed by the inconvenience: in fact now the problem was another…

To try and save their drakkar and then fix it wasn’t an option: the journey was too long and the season was turning to its end to risk to set sail with a ship not in perfect conditions. If it was a short distance, maybe, but in those circumstances it was like suicide...

With these premises, obviously, the only option available was to build a new one, but they didn’t have enough time before the end of the sailing season to finish an entirely new ship or, in the best case scenario, they would have been able to finish it but not to sail home…

“We’ll have to set here until next summer, when we’ll sail with a new drakkar. So find yourselves some women and let’s start from establishing our first colony in this island since we have no other choice but wait for next year to leave.”, he commanded, highly annoyed, and for once his men showed some wisdom in not complaining nor arguing with their captain about his forced decision about that matter.

 

 -&-&-&-

**Notes** :

Ériu = One of the old names of Ireland with mythological origin.

Scotia = Other old name of Ireland up to the eleventh century (and even later in Latin literature), before they started to differentiate it with modern Scotland.

Færøyane = Norwegian name of the Faroe Islands.

Hjaltland = Old name of the Shetland

Fjerding vei = more or less 3 km (plural Fjerdinger)

About the time measurement: the day was divided in eight sections (átt or eykt) and they checked the position of the sun during the day (at least in summer) to know what time it was.  
Highday or Midday – hádegi or middag – (when the sun was south) was the most important phase, and its opposite was Midnight - miðnætti – (when the sun was north).  
In clockwise order starting from Midday they are: middag – midday – (south), undorn (south-west), miðr aptann – mid-evening – (west), náttmál – night-measure (north-west), miðnætti – midnight (north), ótta (north-east), miðr morgun – mid-morning, when people wake up – (east), and dagmál – day-measure –(south-east).

 

And that's all for now... see you in next chapter ;)


	2. First Encounter

The main reason why Norge had decided to leave, in truth, was that constant feeling that something wasn’t right with that island, and it wasn’t just the really unpleasant sensation of been watched all the time…

Since they had arrived there, despite the blatant mystic nature of that land, in a week he still had to meet just one single mystical creature. But, on the other hand, their ship was sinking right in front of their eyes and, even if it was in bad conditions after the perilous crossing to reach there, he had checked it and personally tarred a couple of zones inside and out the hull before landing and, the last time, even the morning earlier: they would have been able to make it home safely with no problem and a bit of luck about the weather.

But still: their drakkar was sinking there, at less than a steinkast from where they stood…

Something was definitely wrong and, now that they were stuck there, he, as the captain of the expedition and their leader and symbol of their proud Viking Nation of Norway, had no choice but find out what it was that didn’t stay right with him since the moment he had set foot on that island that the natives called Ísland – land of ice – and kill the ones who dared do that to them if they were humans, or persuade them to accept them if they were mystical creatures.

But really… he hated all that investigating and eventually needing to be diplomatic the most. It was really very much annoying!

He was going to order to his men to go back to their last camp-site and reestablish it that one of his crewmen shouted that the faering that they had hidden a few steinkasts above to reach the main ship was missing.

To that news, without needing for a word from him, Norge’s troll appeared, menacing, over their heads and started to eradicate a few trees around there at the limit of the shore line with the wood.

At least, knowing that _someone_ did that to their drakkar and faering was reassuring, in a measure: instead of having to deal with mystical creatures, in fact, they could just kill all the men of the small villages they had crossed in that last week and take all their goods and women for themselves without second thoughts.

For once the decision was an easy one.

And when the eyes of their captain turned icy and his lips curved up in a feral smirk, his men knew already what was going to come.

“… then it seems that we will take their women and goods the Viking way…”, he hinted in a cruel tone and everybody there cried in support for their leader’s decision, ready to fight and sack.

-&-

“WHY?! WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING US ALL OF A SUDDEN?!”, the chief of the first village they found on their way to their ‘revenge mission’ screamed, disarmed and kneeling in front of Norge who had his sword pointed at the man’s throat while other two of his men kept him still by his arms at his feet.

“Someone sank our drakkar, so, if it was one of you men, we’re taking our revenge, and if it wasn’t, we’re sending a message to the ones who did it before finally reaching them and making them pay for their impudence. That’s why.”, the blond leader of the Vikings stated in a flat and almost annoyed voice to the man and all the people of the village who stood around there still alive right before unmercifully slicing down their chief before he was able to complain, all that among the screams and cries of the ladies and children. “And now that the last man is dead, you women can decide your fate: you’ll become our properties together with your lands and goods or die the same way as your men.”, he added, glacial, and made exception for a young woman in her twenties who grabbed a pitchfork and attacked back – and who was killed on the spot before she could take the third step from where she was – the rest of them together with the children surrendered.

 

“What are we going to do, now, captain?”, a man called Asger asked Norge in a low voice before following the others in the sack and choosing a woman for himself.

Norge mucked out the blade of his sword on one of the bodies laying on the ground before answering.

“Now we will wait a few days that the word spreads around the other villages and then we attack them too, one after another, until there will be nothing but women and children around for a few mål.”

“But what if they team up against us before then?”

 “…are you a Viking or a coward?”, Norge retorted scathingly and the man just bowed his head in reply and went to collect his own reward.

Then, once alone, Norge finally approached the children that had gathered together in a corner, frightened to death. A couple of them, at his approaching, even pissed themselves in their pants.

Uncaring about that, the blond Viking leader just reached there and bent in front of the young ones slightly smiling at them in a gentle way, gesture that clearly and greatly surprised them after the gore scene that they had witnessed just a few minutes earlier right in front of their now no more pure eyes.

“From now on we will protect you and you’ll grow up as Norse Vikings.”, he stated gently but firmly. “You’ll become as strong as we are and you’ll learn to sail the seas on a drakkar, and when you’ll be a little older than this you’ll cross the sea too and discover new lands, conquer new places and make them yours. It’ll be exciting, I promise.”, he declared. “So from now on you don’t have to fear us anymore and we will become your family. So stop crying, you understand? Vikings don’t cry, and from today onwards you’re Vikings too.”, he declared and gently patted the head of the smaller one, who might be just six or seven years old, with the same hand that held a sword until a few moments ago.

-&-

They decided to settle down in that village, at least for the time being, and they renamed it Reykjarvík.

That same night, around miðnætti, his men were still enjoying the women while he, on the other hand, for all day long until it was time to go to bed, just took care of the children as he always did when they conquered a new village.

For some reason, in fact, he had always been totally uninterested in the carnal pleasure that a woman could provide to him. Not that he hadn’t tried it in the past, but even if he couldn’t deny that a warm body next to his – especially during the long winter’s nights – felt nice, there was always a bittersweet sensation filling his body when he woke up the morning later.

Maybe it was his nature, the fact that he was practically immortal and that, even if he died, he would be reborn somewhere in Norway right away… at least until there were Norse people around the world, or so mother Scandinavia had told them before retiring to live somewhere isolated and leaving the future to him and his brothers less than a century before then…

…maybe he just didn’t want to grow too emotionally attached to humans so not to suffer when they died…

_Yes, maybe it was that…_

He was already laying in his new bed for a long while now, but sleep seemed to want to avoid him that night, so, in the end, he just stood up again and decided to take a walk around while it still was dark outside and he could see the stars in the sky.

“Felman”, he saluted approaching a man walking along the main street of that small settlement. “Go to sleep or enjoy yourself: I’ll patrol here for a while in your stead.”, he stated and the man, after a quick ‘takk’ and a bow of his head, didn’t make him repeat it twice and disappeared behind a door a couple of houses ahead.

 

The short night was calm, so he decided to wander a little further inside the wood right outside the village and, when he found a tree of his liking, he left his sword on the ground under there and just climbed it so to better watch the sky from a higher place.

…because he had always loved the view from high places…

So he leaned against the trunk, his eyes fixed on the leiðarstjarna still visible in the already lightening sky, when again that bad feeling of being watched made him jerk and almost lose balance and fall.

He cursed and, this time, as if in reply to that, a puffin attacked him as if he had been a menace to his nest… but there was no nest on that tree, otherwise he would have noticed.

He grabbed the bird by its paws and checked again, but he wasn’t mistaken. So why had it attacked him?

He suppressed his first impulse to wring the bird’s neck in case some mystical creature just sent it as a messenger or something and, this time, he sighed annoyed.

“Let go of my puffin, you brute!”, a sulking voice of a child ordered from below and he jerked again: he didn’t hear anything approach…

He watched down in the direction of the voice and he saw a boy around ten years old with white and short hair and big violet eyes glaring back at him standing at the feet of the tree.

So he prepared to climb down but the boy stopped him.

“Stay where you are.”, he commanded, but Norge noticed that his voice was slightly wavering.

Despite that, he did as the young one asked.

“You aren’t one of the children of this village”, the blond stated only, and the boy didn’t reply to that but he asked instead: “…were your words true, earlier?”

Norge scoffed.

“I said many things: you have to be more specific than that, but everything I say is the truth, so my reply to your question can be only one: ‘yes’.”

…that boy had something strange in him… he just gave out the feeling of his brothers…

“Now”, Norge continued, innerly intrigued but dryly in practice. “Just answer to one question: are you the one who sank my drakkar and stole my faering?”, he asked, and he liked the light that sparkled in the young one’s glaring eyes at his querying.

“Yes.”, the child replied, daring, and Norge smirked in response.

And the boy, at that, might be expecting him to get angry or something because, when instead of attacking him and take his promised revenge on the one responsible for his loss Norge just asked “Why?”, he suddenly flushed and lowered his gaze.

That very instant Norge decided that that was enough complying to the boy’s whims, so he nimbly jumped off the tree and grabbed the other’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing him to watch at him in the eye.

“I’d like to receive a reply, Ísland.”

It was a guess, but now he was almost sure that the boy in front of him was like him.

At his name called, the youngster blinked at him, his eyes wide open in evident surprise.

“How do you know who I am?!”, the child gasped, his heart hammering in his throat, fear and shock drawn all over his face, but the other man just ignored his question and replied instead: “Nice to meet you, I’m Norge, and my answer to your previous question is: yes, from today onwards you’ll be my little brother and I’ll forever take care of you.”

-&-&-&-

 

 **Notes** :

Faering = open boat with two pairs of oars.

Steinkast = 160 m circa.

Mål (unchanging plural) = 10 000 mq circa.

Reykjarvík = old name of Reykjavík – the additional ‘r’ got removed around 1800. The meaning of the name can more or less be translated as Smoke Bay and takes its name by the geysers all around there.

Leiðarstjarna = the main star for sailors that we can recognize as the North Star or Polaris. By the way, Old Norse preserves almost no star-names, and mentions are often ambiguous, it seems...


End file.
